Author, Speaker, and Consultant on Hyperinnovation, Future Studies, GigaMarket$, The New Industrial Revolution, and Advanced Robotics and (iRev) Intelligence Revolution.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

Lots a Tooth? No Matter!

I thought this Mousey was chewing some gum, but turns out that
green lump in its mouth is a fully-functional, bioengineered tooth, the result
of "tooth regenerative therapy" research at Tokyo University .

Basically that little mouse (Jerry) lost a tooth and grew a new
one in its place with the help of some scientists:

To create the new tooth, the researchers took epithelial cells
and mesenchymal cells from a mouse embryo and cultivated them together in a
collagen-based medium to create a tiny tooth bud. A mass of tissue that has the
potential to develop into a tooth.

This mass of tissues was implanted in the spot where Jerry's old
tooth used to be and after fifty days that mouse could nibble on cheese
properly again. The new tooth grew to the same height as the surrounding ones,
is just as hard, and has all the same blood vessels and nerves.

Researchers are hoping that this bioengineering process will one
day make dentures and false teeth obsolete.

But when one considers the future of Bioethics in this context, the picture the late Rod Hull's 'Emu' says a lot: